Ready, Steady, Go

Welcome, welcome, welcome ... to our 2014 Operation Christmas Child shoebox time. Yes after a busy year which made the time go incredibly fast, we arrived in October and had the Launch Event on the 13th. We were over the moon to see so many people attend the evening particularly when the clocks had not long changed so it was very dark and with the wet weather too, our loyal supporters and volunteers came up trumps yet again.
On that evening we would love to have been able to tell everyone that we had a warehouse, sadly we couldn't and it was still a while after that when we did secure one. But secure one we did and wonderful it is too.
October sped by and we find ourselves in November, a very busy spell for us all. So from an empty shell of a warehouse all is set out and ready for everyone to come and help check the 1000's of shoeboxes.

And yes it will be 1000's let's go through the past few weeks. Most people will know that we are now collecting and processing the shoeboxes from the KT postcode area as well as GU, approximately an extra 9,000. "Wow" we said, "That's great", and its super to know that lots of KT volunteers are going to join us, we are looking forward to meeting them and working together.
Then, and this made us really thankful that we have a warehouse, we learnt that quite a number of areas have not been able to get one, not only is this a huge disappointment for them but leaves them with the problem of what do they do with all the shoeboxes that people will still do.
Come in GU and KT warehouse...... yes we were set a challenge.
Question: Can we take unprocessed shoeboxes from Eastleigh?
Answer: Yes we can, it could be around 5,000.
Question: Can we take processed boxes in cartons from Croydon?
Answer: Yes we can, it will be 100's.
Question: Can we take processed boxes in cartons from Basingstoke, Reading and Maidenhead?
Answer: Well we had to think about this one..... but hey! This could have been us without a warehouse, so naturally with some planning we said yes.
We are ready to go and have been taking in boxes from other offices and doing our own collection this is what we have so far....

So come and enjoy what is going to be the busiest year EVER from this Monday 17th November at 9.30am. We are here and looking forward to the challenges.